China Step by StepPractical intelligence

China arrival card

The arrival card is the entry form foreign travellers complete when they enter mainland China. Online submission became available on 20 November 2025 through the official National Immigration Administration channel, but it is not the only permitted method: travellers who cannot submit ahead may use a port device, scan the port QR code, or fill in a paper card. A short exemption list exists, and entering visa-free for ordinary individual tourism is not on it. Two details of the online form decide how easy it is. The first field is not a field at all — the system asks you to photograph the data page of your travel document before any personal or itinerary information is entered. And the notice attached to it states that omissions or false declarations may result in entry or transit being refused, which is the reason this page treats the card as a document exercise rather than a formality.

Should I do it before China?

Partly — some of it belongs before you fly

Submitting online before you fly is available and is what the official desktop channel exists for. It is not compulsory: the same source keeps port devices, the port QR code and paper cards open to travellers who could not submit ahead. So do it before arrival if you can, and treat it as a task that can still be finished at the port if you cannot. The argument for doing it early is not the form, it is the photograph. Because the data page has to be captured before anything else, filling the card in the arrivals hall means photographing a passport on a phone in a queue, and a blurred or cropped capture stops the form. At home the document lies flat on a desk under a lamp, and the spelling on the page can be copied rather than remembered.

How

  1. Do before arrivalCheck the exemption list first: permanent-resident ID holders, eligible non-Chinese Hong Kong and Macao permit holders, group-visa and group-waiver travellers, airside 24-hour transit passengers, same-cruise entry and exit passengers, fast-lane users and transport crew are exempt.2
  2. Do before arrivalIf you are not exempt, submit the card online. The official desktop channel published by the National Immigration Administration is https://s.nia.gov.cn/ArrivalCardFillingPC/.3
  3. Do before arrivalHave the passport itself in front of you before you open the form. The National Immigration Administration’s online system asks the applicant to photograph the data page of the international travel document as the first step, ahead of any personal or itinerary field, and the notice states that omissions or false declarations may result in entry or transit being refused.4
  4. Do before arrivalCopy every name field from the printed page rather than typing it from memory. This site holds no statement from the immigration authority about how a name has to be entered on the arrival card; the one explicit official statement it does hold on the subject belongs to a payment service — WeChat requires the full name exactly as listed on the identity document, including capitalisation and punctuation — so treat the passport data page, not your habit, as the authority on the spelling in every Chinese form.5
  5. Can do in ChinaIf you could not submit ahead, complete the card at the port instead: use a port device, scan the port QR code, or fill in a paper card.1
  6. Do before arrivalSave +86-12367 before you travel. Both the National Immigration Administration and Romania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs name it as the line for questions about entry formalities and about the arrival card itself. Its opening hours and the languages it serves are not published anywhere we could verify, so treat it as a number to try rather than a guaranteed answer.6
  7. Can do in ChinaKeep the passport on your person once you are through. Article 38 of the Exit and Entry Administration Law requires foreigners aged 16 or over staying in China to carry the passport, another international travel document, or a foreigner stay or residence permit, and to submit it for inspection by public security organs. Whether a photocopy or a phone photo would satisfy that obligation is not settled by the article text this site holds; the caution against relying on one is this site’s note on the record, not a line in the law. Carry the original.7
  8. Can do in ChinaTreat the card as the first of two registrations, not the only one. Where you sleep is registered as well: a hotel does it for you, while in non-hotel accommodation the guest or the host has to register with local public security within 24 hours of arriving at the accommodation. The accommodation-registration page carries the detail and the conflicting readings of that deadline.8

What can go wrong

You enter visa-free for individual tourism and assume the waiver also exempts you from the arrival card.

What to do instead It does not. Ordinary individual visa-free tourism alone is not an exemption, so complete the card like everyone else who is not on the list.2

Online submission does not go through before you fly.

What to do instead Online submission is not the only permitted method. Use a port device, scan the port QR code, or complete a paper card after you land.1

You are not sure which arrival-card website is the real one.

What to do instead Use the desktop channel published by the National Immigration Administration: https://s.nia.gov.cn/ArrivalCardFillingPC/.3

You start the form at the airport and the data-page photograph will not go through.

What to do instead That capture is the first step of the online system, so a blurred or cropped photo stops the form before any other field is reached — and a phone camera in a queue is where that happens. The other routes stay open and the recorded fallback is to use them: a self-service device at the port, the port QR code, or a paper card. Take one of those rather than fighting the photograph.4

You put the passport in the hotel safe once the entry formalities are done.

What to do instead The obligation does not end at the border. Article 38 requires foreigners aged 16 or over to have the document on them and to produce it for a public security inspection, and nothing in the law makes a copy a substitute. Carry the original. The fallback recorded against that obligation, for the case where the passport is lost or stolen, is a certificate of the loss from the local exit-entry administration office and a replacement travel document from your embassy.7

Last verified and sources

Each record below is shown as provenance: who published it, what kind of document it is, how far it reaches and when we last checked it. The source’s own wording is not reproduced here — most of these documents are published in Chinese, and a translation of ours would be a paraphrase standing where a citation should be. Follow the link to read any of them in the original.

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